[00:04.55]My dream ended when I was born.
[00:08.58]Although I never knew it then, I just held on to something that would never come to pass.
[00:14.57]Dreams really do exist. But in the morning when you wake up, they are remembered just as a dream.
[00:22.19]That is what happened to me.
[00:24.59]I always had the dream to dance like a beautiful ballerina twirling around and around and hearing people applaud for me.
[00:32.86]When I was young, I would twirl around and around in the fields of wildflowers that grew in my backyard.
[00:40.92]I thought that if I twirled faster everything would disappear and I would wake up in a new place.
[00:47.02]Reality woke me up when I heard a voice saying, “I don’t know why you bother trying to dance.
[00:54.09]Ballerinas are pretty, slender little girls. Besides, you don’t have the talent to even be a ballerina.”
[01:02.05]I remember how those words paralyzed every feeling in my body.
[01:06.41]I fell to the ground and wept for hours.
[01:10.10]We lived in the country by a nearby lake.
[01:13.48]I did not like to be at home.
[01:16.53]When my parents were home, my mother just yelled and criticized because nothing was ever perfect in her life.
[01:23.17]She dreamed of a different life but she ended up living in the country far away from the city where she believed her dreams would have come true.
[01:31.34]I enjoyed hanging out by the water. I would sit there for hours and stare at my reflection.
[01:37.76]There I was, looking nothing like a pretty ballerina dancer. Reflections don’t lie.
[01:43.86]Once the waves would come, my reflection was gone.
[01:48.11]Washed away just like my dream to dance.
[01:52.79]As I grew older, I began to realize that the reason my dream was even born, was because it was something that was inside of me.
[02:00.97]The dream I had was never nurtured and cared for, so it slowly died.
[02:06.22]It’s not that I wanted it to die, but I allowed it to die the day I listened to the words, “You can’t do it.”
[02:13.76]When I finally woke up from many years of dreaming,
[02:17.60]I realized that you can’t settle for dancing in the wildflowers, you have to move on to the platform.
